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A Pageant of Life 

Poems by 

GAMALIEL BRADFORD, |r. 




Class J? 



Book 



■l^Vc 



Copyright N°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



A Pageant of Life 



Gamaliel Bradford, Jr. 




Boston: Richard G. Badger 

The Gorham Press 

1904 



Copyright 1904 by Gamaliel Bradford, Jr. ^,-, 
All Rights Reserved. >• O 



OF^ 



Two CoBies rtccolved 

NOV 7 iiJO'* 

Ooosnunt tntry 

COPY An 






Printed at 
The Gotham Press 
Boston, U. S. A. 



TO H. F. B. 



CONTENTS 

A Pageant of Life 9 

The Villa of Hadrian 39 

Song of the Sirens to Ulysses .... 44 

A Verse of Isaiah 45 

Leopardi 47 

Sonnets 51 

Songs and Lyrics 57 

Prologue and Lyrics from A Mad World . . 67 

Translations 74 



A PAGEANT OF LIFE 



HERACLITUS 

As one who in a mighty river swims 

And feels the water's smooth, incessant flow, 
With drops that ever come and ever go, 

Till his brain totters and his eyesight dims, 

So may we feel our life fly. Lightest whims 
And fiercest lusts that rock us to and fro 
Shift, fade alike, and vanish. Fast or slow, 

The endless stream its unknown channel brims. 

One only in this change remains unchanged. 

All time sw^eeps on and all it leaves behind, 
The heart that harbored and the heart that ranged, 

All passion's ebbs and flows, and hope's clear wind. 
All love and hate, estranger and estranged, 

Are quiet in that one eternal mind. 



EPICURUS 

From early morn till late at eve I use 
To ponder on the cause and end of things: 
Whether the gods are vain imaginings. 

Why love is blind, why passions crush and bruise. 

Why men seek evil and the good refuse. 
Beneath my trees, where Philomela sings, 
Where fountains play, and marble gods and kings 

Look on benign, I meditate and muse. 

Sometimes a wave of girlish love breaks in 
And floods my reveries with passion's foam- 
I laugh, and pant, and struggle for my breath. 
So years pass on, and end, as they begin ; 
And I, contented, wait till that day come, 
Which leads from quiet life to quiet death. 



MENANDER 

The mighty days were gone and the mere lees 

Of poetry and song alone were left. 

Athens, of glor>' and high place bereft, 
Forgot her Phidias and her Sophocles. 
\'et thou, content with lesser palm than these. 

Didst frame with careful grace thy comic weft. 

With easy raillery and conduct deft 
At once couldst charm the sage, the vulgar please. 

A mellow wisdom through thy pages flows. 
Not shaking laughter, holding both his sides, 
But such sweet wit as meditation guides, 

Just tempered with the pause of him who knows 
That human life and love are light as breath. 
Till weighted with the leaden thought of death. 



ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE 

Swift Europe rushed on Asia, horse and man, 
Borne onward by that young heroic soul. 
Like winter tides, whose surge brooks no control. 

The heavy East could but with wonder scan 

So many fiery hearts that rode, and ran. 

And raved, and fought, and bled, and drank, 

and stole 
Her hoarded wealth, and had no other goal 

Than noise and blood, action without a plan. 

Patient she watched and waited for her time. 

Until at length the victors' selves were changed : 
From Grecian thought and Grecian strength 

estranged. 
In womanish garb which womanish life beseems. 
Consumed by Eastern vice and Eastern dreams. 

They rotted in the quiet Asian clime. 



THEOCRITUS 

The country life of poets is so sweet! 

The low, the base, the clogging, and the mean 

Are banished far from that enchanting scene. 
The flute and tabor tempt unwearied feet 
To gleam like stars for starless age, whose seat 

Is quiet under boughs forever green. 

If only such a sweet world e'er had been 
Outside of Fancy's realm and dear retreat. 

In thee alone that golden world seems real. 
The breath of cattle, touch of hairy goats. 

Coarse rustic jest, laugh long and loud and 
free — 
All mingle in thy pastoral ideal, 

Lending a homely savor to thy notes. 
Sung by the blue, divine, Sicilian sea. 



HANNIBAL 

Son of the splendid city of the sea. 

Who climbed so high to fall at last so low, 
How grand it was to sweep from ice and snow. 

Like Alpine eagle, on thine enemy; 

To gorge on spoil of Roman luxury. 

To grind thy heel into thy country's foe, 

To make her writhing, groaning, pleading, know 

The bitter taste of scorned humility. 

Vain triumph! She was sterner framed than thou. 
As thou wert doomed to find, when, slow and sure. 
She urged revenge unto thy very home. 
The knee she made to bend must ever bow ; 
No hope could medicine, no time could cure 
What once was shattered by imperial Rome. 

II 



DYING GREECE 

Light of the world, thou idol of the wise, 

Greece, first in thought and first in beauty too. 
Thy grandeur gone, thou needs must stoop to sue, 

Cringing and pleading, 'neath the Roman eyes, 

Full of strange greed and barbarous surprise. 
Worse still is yet to come: a filthy crew. 
Christian and Turk, in ruffian hordes, must strew 

Thy sacred soil with their iniquities. 

Yet through the night and storm of time's decay 

Thy memory and glory shall abide. 
Though winds may rave and shattering tempests 

sway 
The bark in which the hopes of man are driven ; 

No mist shall dim, no cloud of fate shall hide 
Athens, the fairest star in all thought's heaven. 



REPUBLICAN ROME 

Let others shape and carve and paint and gild, 

Our Rome shall triumph in the rule of men. 

The whole wide world shall hail the denizen 
Of this imperial city seven-hilled. 
Let Carthage sullen bow, Greece servile build 

Our monuments with trowel and with pen. 

In far Helvetia's most sequestered glen 
Men's mouths shall be with Roman glory filled. 

Alas, if fame of rule could outwear fame 
Of lyre, of pen, of chisel, or of brush! 

But consuls steal and great commanders thieve; 
The hand that was so mighty to achieve 
Is mightier still to burn and grind and crush; 
And Roman glory is but Roman shame. 



LUCRETIUS 

Great rebel, in the thunder of thy verse 

The beating of thy passionate heart is heard, 
Which stamped its energy on every word, 
And dared proclaim the universal curse 
That broods on life. Thou labored'st to disperse 
The pale deceits, by fond man still preferred 
To bare and naked truth, not over-blurred 
W^ith foul hypocrisy and evils worse: 
Hatred, and superstition, and low guile. 

Thou hast thy sweets, too: pure, serene content, 
In realms where high philosophy doth move; 
Stoic resolve to meet what fate hath sent ; 
And here and there the purple light of love, 
Touching thought's arid desert with a smile. 



LESBIA 

That piercing, tender, grief-thrilled plaint must 
harrow 

The souls of all who hear with lover's ears. 

And still, with thee, after two thousand years, 
We mourn about the falling of a sparrow. 
So, like a swift gleam through a casement narrow, 

Pours down on us a flood of smiles and tears. 

Blending thy name with all Love's hopes and 
fears, 
In words bright, keen, and stinging as his arrow. 

Kisses, and kisses, and kisses, yet again. 
As thick as autumn leaves, or summer rain, 

Or arid sand upon the Libyan hills! 
If only so love could be made to stay, 
And hideous, creeping age be kept away. 

Which starves and numbs and freezes, ere it kills. 



13 



CLEOPATIL-V 

Thou serpent of old Nile, in whose ga}^ coil 
The noblest of the world were caught and stung, 
Fierce, opulent beaut}^ from whose honeyed 
tongue 

Variety flowed still thyself the foil 

To thine own loveliness, in what turmoil 

Thou put'st him even today, who dreams among 
Old books in which thy witcheries are sung! 

What would he give to tread thy mystic soil, 

To swim thy sacred river, whose divine, 

Slow tide flows seven-mouthed to the sea, 

To serve thine Isis, to adore thy shrine 
With trembling, love-infatuated knee, 

To feel thy burning lips once kiss him thine- 
WTiat would he give to have been loved by thee! 



VIRGIL 

The sheaf, the vine, the apple, and the bee, 
And fauns who pipe to old Silenus bass. 
Sufficed thy dreaming youth. The Roman race. 

With all its pomp and glory, could not be 

Enough for thy maturer faculty, 

Till human love warmed it with crimson trace. 
Who of the poets of sweetness and of grace — 

Beloved band,-has ever equalled thee? 

Not pure Racine, too conscious of his age, 
Not Tasso. smothered in a world of dreams. 
Not Spenser, lost in his own melody, 
Has mastered so the subtle witchery^ 
Of words and thoughts, whose intricate blending 
seems 
An opiate for life's dull pilcrimage. 

14 



THE STAR 

In old Chaldea, in the chill}^ night, 

The shepherds watched their flocks, and hid 
among 

Their fleecy charge, told the dull hours along. 
When sudden, in the East, an unknown light 
Flares upwards, and about its lustre bright 

Angels, in flashing cohorts, singing, throng. 

The lovely echo of that morning song 
Alade the foul shadows of the dark take flight 
And waked another world. To blast old lies 
And the weak, futile dreaming of the wise. 

To teach us what we cannot quite forget, 
To free mankind from death's eternal prison — 
Star of the world, for these things wert thou risen, 

Star of the world, ah, wherefore art thou set? 



EPICTETUS 

Serve wisdom only, make the right thy guide. 
And let desire with all its evils be. 
Behold the shadow world indifferently. 

That neither life nor death may once divide 

Thy thoughts from the Unchanged whom changes 
hide. 
Trust in thine own firm will, and thou shalt see 
Pleasure and pain become alike to thee, 

And man in his own virtue deified. 

Stern law and guide severe, ah, too severe. 
For men of dust not moulded into stone. 
Too barren is the refuge thou supply'st. 
The broken human heart, too weak to bear 
Thy harsh and rigid rule, sighed and took on 
The mild and gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. 

15 



THE VILLA OF HADRIAN 

"Animula, vagula, blandula." 

The golden glory of an autumn sun 

Sheds its full radiance on the mountain tops ; 
While, save the birds' bright singing in the copse, 

No murmur breaks the middaj^ hush, not one. 

I dream among vast columns, overspun 

With cobwebs, walls from which the ivy drops 
In gleaming clusters, roofs whose mighty props 

Are tottering, halls whose grandeur is undone. 

And thou, whose curious spirit planned this whole. 
To make thine eve epitomize thy noon. 

Whose restlessness, forced here to find its goal. 
Lay brooding on the hour that comes too soon,— 

Flits now thy timid, frail, unquiet soul 

Beyond the orbed wanderings of the moon ? 

THE FAUN 

Out from the covert of the tangled boughs 

A faun, crouched close, peered, with his strange, 

wild eyes, 
Watching the sacred Christian mysteries. 

No rout he saw in Bacchanal carouse. 

No spilth of blood, no plight of grosser vows. 
He heard the blessed hymn so solemn rise 
It touched the very azure of the skies: 

The Son of Man receives the Church, his spouse. 

The scared faun heard and shook in every limb. 

His eyes grew wilder with a strange dismay. 
The gospel new he felt was not for him, 

Creature of unmixed earth and tainted clay. 
He turned ; and far within the forest dim, 

Sought to escape the glare of Chrstian day. 

i6 



LUCIAN 

Thou could'st call spirits from the vasty deep, 
And they would come when thou did'st call for 

them ; 
Could'st hang the sparkle of an airy gem 

Of wit on mortals who had lain asleep 

So long, they had forgot to laugh or weep ; 
Could'st make a skeleton shake off its phlegm 
And dance a jig or phrase an apothegm, 

Then back once more to dust and quiet creep. 

The gods for thee would leap like marionettes, 
Or mow like apes, or chatter like the jay. 
Happy such heart as thine, which walks its way, 
In pleasant sunlight of its own sweet mirth ; 

And pleased with airy mockery, forgets 
The dusty toil and vain deceits of earth. 



MARCUS AURELIUS 

Beggars in rags and bare philosophers 

Take comfort in the airy sweets of thought. 
The austere paths of truth are seldom sought 

By those who plunge their hands in Fortune's purse 

Up to the elbow. Solid joys of hers. 

Though with satiety and sadness fraught, 
Beguile the proud. He only who is taught 

By care and grief the way of right prefers. 

Yet thou, arrayed in thy imperial might. 

Seated on what seemed Rome's eternal throne. 

With treasuries and armies at thy nod, 

Kept'st firm, and calm, and clear, thine inward 

sight. 

And still, with steady step, wert pressing on 

Toward a diviner resting place in God. 

17 



A SAINT (Third Century A. D.) 

Come, hack me, hew me, tear me limb from limb. 

Bring out your rack, your pincers, and your steel. 

Urge on your executioners to deal 
Quick death or slow, with all their torments grim. 
What though my heart should faint and my brain 
swim. 

What though my weak will cannot quite conceal 

The throb and wrench of human nerves which 
feel?— 
Your sword, your axe, your flame cannot hide him. 

God! The smoke and blaze are mounting 

higher. 

1 hear the fearful rushing of the fire, 

Give me that courage which thou ne'er dcny'st. 
After the draining of this bitter cup, 
My soul in glory shall be lifted up 

And I shall triumph with the risen Christ. 

ST. ANTHONY 

Devils of fear, devils who roar and rage, 

Devils with rending steel and scorching fire; 

Devils of greed, who spur on sharp desire 
With gold and gems that dazzle even the sage; 
Devils of power, who whisper wars to wage 

And thrones to which the wicked may aspire; 

Devils of ease, who proffer rich attire 
And idle shifts to cheer life's pilgrimage; 

Devils of lust, with strange, voluptuous forms. 
Enchanting eyes that make the soul afraid, 

That wither virtue and turn conscience tame ; 
Devils alone, devils in shoals and swarms- 
Yet all these devils tremble and fear and fade 
And vanish, when I name the Saviour's name. 

i8 



JULIAN THE APOSTATE 

"New creeds," thou said'st, "new evils. Men con- 
tend 

For foolish fancies about things unknown, 

Because thej^ dare not live for right alone. 
They think their greed and wickedness will end 
When once a dream-god ventures to descend 

And bear the curse of flesh with mortal groan. 

Fools, never yet could man for man atone. 
Keep your old gods and let your own lives mend." 

Vain hope, to raise the dead, bring back the past : 
New Gods are born, the old are forced to bow. 
In spite of yearning hearts and bitter tears. 
The most supreme must fade and fail at last. 
And many and many a soul is striving now. 
As thou did'st — after fifteen hundred years. 



THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH 

Strange strife of words, which love and good forgets, 
Damnation deep backward and forward tossed. 
The depths of man's dark ignorance shown most 

By the impatient rage with which he frets 

Against the hopeless impotence that nets 

And strangles him. Scholars in host on host. 
Branding each other with enormous boast 

Of sounding wrath and empty epithets. 

And out of this grotesque debate there grew. 

From those who conquered and those overcome. 

The hugest fabric the world ever knew. 

Creed piled on creed and tome on dusty tome. 

Strange that so vast an edifice should be 

Reared from that simple life in Galilee. 

19 



DAPHNIS AND CHLOE 

Love, warm and fresh and innocent as May; 
Love, panting in the inmost solitudes 
And quiet, dewy nooks of dim, green woods ; 
Love, bright beneath the placid eye of day. 
Not forced to hide its glowing joys away 

From canting gossipry, whose tongue intrudes, 
And cold, cramped, harsh, dull age's platitudes; 
Love, w^hich forgets the hours that will not stay 
And makes a man immortal as a god ; 

Love, still athirst, still quenched, whose golden 
cup 
Makes the whole world to passionate music 
move ; 
Love, at whose royal and omnipotent nod, 
The soul in one wide flame is lifted up — 
See here thy sweetest sacrifice, O Love. 



ST. SLMEON STYLITES 

The fierce and torrid suns of summer flash 

Upon me, till I wither in the glare ; 

And fiery devils, sailing in the air, 
Tempt my sick fancy, till I long to dasji 
My reeling brains out. Storms Immense and rasli 

Come hurrying from the angry South wind's lair. 

Mad lightnings lay the vault of Heaven bare. 
Till all my senses shiver in the crash. 

Then, slow awaking, in a vision dim, 
I hear the murmur of a solemn hymn. 

From the devout below who watch and pray ; 
While far above, in azure depths of Heaven, 
Resounds the ringing of the planets seven, 

In mighty march on their eternal way. 

20 



THE DARK AGES 

Like the amazement of a night attack, 

When arms resound and half-waked sentries stare, 
And lurid torches flicker in the air. 

Making the heavy dark more dense and black: 

Such were those hideous ages. Storm and sack, 
Man's hate let loose without control or care. 
Terrible wrath, more terrible despair. 

Strife here, strife there, urged forward and urged 
back. 

All Europe shook with the insensate jar; 

Yet, mid the crash of moving horde on horde, 
Above the tumult and the din of war, 

Brighter than gleam of torch or flash of sword. 
Calm in the vault of Heaven hung one fair star, 

The memory and love of Christ the Lord. 



THE KNIGHT ERRANT 

All day I ride at will through sun and shade; 
Sometimes with rein upon my horse's neck. 
Lazily watching drops of light that fleck 

The leaves and blossoms in a w^oodland glade ; 

Sometimes, in w-ild career, with eager blade, 

Crushing out wrong and setting bound and check 
To cruelty and greed, which at my beck 

Cower and cringe, of honest wrath afraid ; 

And sometimes, through the forest green, I see 
A lady dim, who nods and laughs at me, 

I follow, follow, follow, in despair ; 
Until at length, in some secluded grot, 
Where angry winds and tempests enter not, 

She kisses me, and soothes my soul from care. 

21 



THE SEA KING 

No doubter he, nor questioner of things, 

No pallid student, worn with thought's decay. 
Over the pathless water lies his wa_v. 

Still in his ear the boisterous North wind sings, 

Still he flies forvAard, on the eager wings 
Of swift white galleys, till he strikes his prey, 
Leaving behind him terror and dismay. — 

Then with his cr_\' the vault of Heaven rings. 

And when his battles end, as end they must. 
At least the bard's shrill legend he can hear. 
Singing of bold deeds and the din of war. 
What though his body be but sin and dust? 
His soul sweeps out beyond the realm of fear. 
The child of Odin and the loved of Thor. 



THE CRUSADES 

With flaunting plumes and gorgeous banners gay. 

The lordly hosts went forth on sea and land; 

Prelates and kings, exultant in command. 
Made ancient realms stoop low beneath their sway. 
Their splendor dimmed tlic eye of southern day. 

And scared the Moslem from the sacred strand; 

Till, lost in that drear waste of barren sand, 
Famine and discord wasted them away. 

Then they came hack, like spent thieves, wearily. 
Wounded and broken, faint, and sore, and wan, 

Their splendor gone, their grandeur infamy. 
Loathing the pride with which they first began. 

So fail, so fade, so wither, and so die 
The vast ideal hopes and aims of man. 

22 



THE TROUBADOUR 

With lute and sword I wander all day long 

Through quiet lanes and over sunny slopes; 

Nor envy I the weary mole who gropes 
In cities close, though gold to him belong. 
Who has no end to reach can scarce go wrong; 

The poor with neither thief nor beggar copes. 

I have no other kingdom than my hopes ; 
I have no other riches than my song. 

My song which I love more than even love, 
Though love be all the matter that I sing. 

Ah, when on moonlit eves I cease to rove 
And bid my passion in my notes take wing, 

It seems as if the very heaven above 
Were set on fire with my carolling. 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR 

What though his frock be torn and skin be brown. 

With filth of many years quite overlaid? 

Docs he not prosper in his jolly trade. 
Trotting at vagrant vvill from town to town ? 
Can he not laugh at ease and lay him down 

With well-filled can beneath the pleasant shade? 

Why should he not be kissed by wife or maid, 
When he for Christ's poor follower is known? 

^lixed company, these followers of Christ: 

Tiaraed Popes, with purple luxury; 
Fat curates comfortably beneficed; 

The eas3^-going flock, who keep one eye 
On heaven, and clutch the world with greedy fist; 

And some rare, sweet, \\hite flowers of charity. 

23 



THE COURT FOOL 

What though mankind still jangle and go wrong? 
Not for the wisest prater of them all, I 
Will bate one jot of my fantastic foil)-. 

I shake my bells and sing an idle song. 

For all world's beauty doth to me belong. 
Let them have wisdom with her melancholy, 
Let them be politic and me be jolly, — 

I shake my bells and sing an idle song. 

Sometimes, upon a summer afternoon, 

I dream that men are governed by the moon, 

And still, and still, the wild procession swells: 
Wise kings, wise priests, wise fools run mad with 

laughter; 
And while they dance, and reel, and tumble after, 

I sing an idle song and shake my bells. 



THE MONK SIRENIUS 

In quiet cell my quiet hours I spend, 

A round of daily duties daily done : 

Now slipping through my fingers, one by one, 
My well worn beads, which well-worn prayers at- 
tend; 
Now adding splendid tints to what I penned 

About the holy Mary and her son. 

The task so long, so long ago begun 
Goes leisurely; I would not have it end. 

They say there's wild work in the world outside. 
Princes and kings are hurrying far and wide ; 

There's crowns stuck on awry, crowns rent away ; 
And sometimes, with vague murmur from afar, 
I hear the din and crash of hideous war — 

What care I, so they let me paint and pray? 

24 



A SAINT (Thirteenth Century A. D.) 

Out of the waves of vanity which toss 

My weary soul, till grief is all it knows; 
Out of the sharp variety of woes ; 

Out of the world's delight, which is but dross; 

Out of the world's gain, which I count but loss; 
As one scarce yet recovered from death's throes, 
Who dazzled, weak, stumbling, and creeping goes, 

I turn, and fling my arms about the Cross. 

My brow is wet, my heart is filled with flame. 
Thinking of all my sin and bitter shame — 

And then I faint with breath of lilies sweet. 
Close at my side I hear my Loved One say, 
"Blessed are those that watch and those that pray;" 

And all my soul is poured out at his feet. 



THE GOTHIC 

A dream of stone! Upon thy walls without 
Is carved the tumult of the life of man. 
The passions and the hopes, which, through the 
span 

Of years so brief, still hurry liim about, 

That flying from the strange, disordered rout, 
He may find refuge in thy calm, may scan- 
His arms about the Cross - those wounds that ran 

With God's own blood, to free mankind from doubt. 

We too would seek a refuge ; but to thee 
We come in vain ; for all thy help is gone. 

Thy Cross is broken. Where God's blood should be. 
Mere man's blood is that never can atone 

For one man's sin. And where we hoped to see 
A dream of Heaven, we find a dream of stone. 

25 



1 Tw-lTv*^ 



Thou TT . s ftex of this foi:rteen-?mnged lyre. 
Cunning-est frezver cf derr"'" - - - r 

Thci; rrir>ce of tbose Trbcs-e ec^tssies belong 

To ir.C'UZ""- cor ztzlznz. ~~JC'a vrLo>e zolcen 



]Msfe ::;Te-5 if-Z s:.Er £ Heaven zizz-— 
Petrarch. I rhee i-vcie to ££ -j :.:_>.: 
Net Ii&e believers Trbo vrltb vcvs Lzzct. 
And. kneel, snd kiss, scd pass, sni 5.0 forget 
Bi;t tbzt tbe constant "jrorsbip Trhidh I xis.e 
^IsT grcTT in comrrebensirn njtre and more. 
Till tbr bid: se£ rDon nor sons be s-et. 



CKAUCIR 



Tbv tears are street. Dan e.ia-jcer: Palenson. 

And C-'onsT2ncr. ana (jrose^da. an a most ne 

V.~h': still so Ic-zc. and dear kept singing on. 
A\~-?n d~eT bad cut bis tbroat iinto tbe bone, 

Xbrtse rjrsed Jews,, vdd ad tbeir kr^Terr. 

B-jt sweeter far tban eren tby teats can be, 

"^ Veiling fortb erer in debcio-us ease. 

Clear as dtie Xortb Tvind. or a "Brinier star. 



THE REXAISSANXE 

After the drean- night of blood and grief, 
A crimson dawn of J03" and splendor flowed 
Out of the East, and touched the dark abode 

Of stupid, low-browed priest and feudal thief. 

All Europe woke and sighed with sweet relief, 
Wondered and watched, while clear and clearer 

glowed 
Old loveliness, which neither storms corrode 

Xor 3"ears can dim, though thick with gross belief. 

Then sudden poured the fount of beaut\- forth. 
Gorgeous with color, rich with phrase and rhyme, 
Packed close with human love and hate intense : 
It purpled east, and Avest, and south, and north. 
Splendid with varying hues in even," clime, 
A carnival of passion and of sense. 



BOTTICELLI 

The pagan beauty and the pagan mirth: 

The HeU-forgetting, Heaven- forgetting glee, 
^Mlich filled his age with sensual re\-eln,-. 

That full and joyous age of the re-birth; 

The round perfecting of our life on earth, 

"\Miich old Greece cherished, till it grew to be 
Tainted with sombre Chrisrianit}- — 

All this he knew, knew it and kncAv its worth. 

But when he tried to paint it. in his heart 

He felt the throbbing of the Christian pain. 
All Heaven and Hell were brooding o'er his art: 
And in his fauns' wild eyes you see a start 
Of terror ; while his Graces strive in vain 
To dance the old, mad, pagan dance again. 

27 



TITIAN AND THE VENETIAN PAINTERS 

Who is the artist? He who sees and hears 

Like common men, but sees and hears far more. 
For common e_ves, with busy haste, pass o'er 

The beauty hidden in human smiles and tears. 

Only the artist sees in what appears 

To casual senses dull and mean and poor 
A light and splendor never dreamed before. 

And fixes it beyond the touch of years. 

So thou and thy great fellows could perceive 
Beauty in grief, which gladdens them that grieve. 

And joy in joy beyond all common ken; 

Nay more, could pour it forth with brush and pen, 
Until the enraptured gazers half believe 

A new and fairer world is given to men. 



THE VOYAGERS OF THE SIXTEENTH 
CENTURY 

"Let the dead world her dust and ashes breathe, 

We wander forth to seek a continent. 

Old sights, old sounds, old dreams cannot content 
Our hungry souls, nor glory's common wreath. 
Through the wild stir of waves that boil beneath 

We battle on, for gain and conquest bent; 

And throbs of fire, through all our pulses sent. 
Make the quick brain with hope and ardor seethe." 

So cried those ancient voyagers. Now no more 
We sail an untried sea for unknown shore: 

The outer world is dull and worn and old. 
Our voyages lie o'er thought's enormous deep, 
Where unfound lands of hidden wonder sleep 

And gulfs that shake the heart however bold. 

28 



THE ARMADA 

In the dim chambers of the Escurial 

The sour fanatic mumbled o'er his creed. 

"God gives me grace," he said, "to uproot the 
weed 
Of error from my land imperial. 
Through Spain and through the world the axe shall 
fall, 

The heretic shall burn, with all his seed. 

Yet who can say God reigns supreme indeed, 
Till England's haughty splendor fade and pall." 

So said he. And he sent his galleys forth 
To crush that little island of the north, 

England the fair, England the brave and free. 
In thousands went they forth ; but few came home. 
Beaten and shattered by the icy foam. 

Their fierce God baffled by the fiercer sea. 



CERVANTES 

Sweet saint of merriment, with kindly eyes. 
Of all the many mingled gifts of Heaven 
What better for all moods has e'er been given 
Than that which bears thy name. So just, so wise, 
So ripe in mirth, in all the quick surprise 
Of ever-ready wit so calm, so true. 
Furbishing up old nobleness in new, 
Bright laughter, under which half-hidden lies 
A world-wide sympathy with all that's good. 
Or whole, or half, or nothing understood, 
Thou art beloved still ; and still do pass, 
In mellow sunshine, as we dreaming lie, 
The wan knight, with his spear held martially, 
And Sancho plodding on his patient ass. 

29 



THE PILGRLM FATHERS 

No simple, quiet, palmer-folk were the}^ 

With fearful mien, and humble staff and scrip. 

It needed sterner hands to drive their ship 
Over the dark and awful watery waj'. 
It needed sterner hands to rear and stay 

The firm erection of their statesmanslilp. 

O mighty men of old, how great things slip, 
Totter, and fail, and sink, unknown, away! 

^ our names remain, but gone, forever gone 
Are those beliefs you reared your dwelling on. 

Deeming it sure as the eternal rock. 
Your children praise your virtues half in fear. 
They hardly love you when they most revere ; 

And some there are who scruple not to mock. 



THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 

Land of my first love, garden of my heart! 

Let other nations keep their simpler fare; 

Let Spain exult in Calderon's sweet air; 
And Athens triumph in her tragic art. 
For throb of human life, for rushing dart 

Of passion, like the storm in speed and glare, 

What other nation can with you compare. 
Land of my first love, garden of my heart? 

Laughter and tears in like profusion come. 
Blossom of rose, blossom of bitter rue. 

Words which assuage the anguish they impart, 
A tongue supreme, to me the tongue of home — 
Sweet fate, to walk through life alone in you, 
Land of my first love, garden of my heart. 

30 



RUBENS 

No spirit world is thine, no saints who thresh 
The grain of virtue from the chaf¥ of h'fe. 
Thy saints are men of earth and earthly strife. 

No Heaven in them. Thine is a world of flesh, 

Flesh glowing;, panting, with the throb of fresh, 
Intense delight of sensual joy, flesh rife 
With keen desires that sting it like a knife. 

Flesh snared with witcheries of Satan's mesh. 

No spirit world is thine. The solid earth. 
With all it bears, is good enough for thee: 

Fierce human passions and the plague of worth ; 
The sweet fruit of an hour's felicity; 

And over all that smile at death and birth, 
\\^hose calm outwears wrinkled philosophy. 



CALDERON 

Rosaura, Laura, Clara, Isabel, 
Clarinda, Flora, Leonora, Elvira, 
With Juan, Sancho, Ferdinand, and near a 

Half hundred other dainty Dons as well. 

Swords flashing, pistols crashing, there the swell 
Of Christian organs booming loud, and here a 
Grim Moslem with red turban — may the wearer 

Burn redder, thousand fathoms deep in Hell ! 

Strange honor, striking, shooting, poisoning, stab- 
bing ; 
Strange creed of hatred, shrined 'mid brands and 
spears ; 
Laughter that bites its lips to hold from blabbing; 
And anguish that keeps smiling through its tears. 
Such — and in Heaven or earth thy like is none — 
Such art thou, Spanish, Spanish Calderon. 

31 



VOLTAIRE 

"Thou incarnation of a shallow age, 

When love was dead, and virtue was a dream. 
And God a name, and pietv the theme 

Of gibe and laughter, and to be a sage 

Meant to throw off old custom and engage 
In endless war with all men holy deem : 
How canst thou ask for honor and esteem 

From those who toil in life's stern pilgrimage?' 

So cry thy foes; but I delight in thee. 

Thy splendid wit, thy keen and sober sense. 

I ask thee not for dreams or hopes intense; 
But what a pleasure is thy mockery. 

With what keen shafts thy foeman thou canst 
press. 

Pricking dull heads and empty nothingness. 



RICHARDSON 

Fair Pamela, with maiden grace demure. 
Whom mirth-begotten Joseph cannot spoil ; 
And stately Grandison, whom patient toil 

Framed to a type that ever shall endure ; 

Between them both the glorified, the pure. 
Angelic lady, who mid all the coil 
Of greed and lust, with ravenous turmoil. 

Shines like a quiet star, serene and sure — 

These are thy children, musty publisher, 

Thou cotton nightcap, thou trim wig and sword. 
Thou Philistine of Philistines at heart! 
These are thy children. That the muse should stir 
So tame a spirit with so swift a word ! 

How pleasant are thy mockeries, O Art! 



KANT 

Undoer of old creeds, thy mighty word, 

Breathed from that peaceful German dwelling- 
place. 
Upheaved the temple of wisdom from its base 
And shook the solid world. Thy voice was heard 
But faintly, even as his was, who first stirred 
New laws about the planetary race 
And all the endless suns on suns that chase 
Each other through the void ; for men preferred. 
As they have always done, their smooth old lies. 
But thou did'st walk along thy quiet street, 
And live thy quiet life, heeding them not. 
In busy leisure piling thought on thought, — 
Now is thy name the first of those we meet 
In the eternal record of the wise. 



THE RETURN TO NATURE 

"My passion is the passion of the sea. 

I share the glorious wandering of the cloud. 

The tempest speaks my spirit, stern and proud. 
The winds, which murmur everlastingly, 
Breathe my regrets' unknown infinity. 

My soul in bending flowers is bent and bowed.'" 

Thus cried those men who saw behind the shroud 
Of Nature omnipresent Deity. 

Now man stands silent in the vast abyss, 
He shudders at the crash of winds and seas, 
Cold laws surround him with their hearts of 
stone. 
Nature no more can soothe him or caress: 
Her starlit gulfs and awful mysteries 
Leave him unpitied, loveless, and alone. 

33 



MODERN MUSIC 

All beauty and all passion of all time 
Are gathered in a carnival of sound: 
The other arts seem creatures of the ground, 

Compared to this, whose mounting raptures climb 

Beyond the height of Heaven, and sublime 

By their mere vagueness, wither and confound 
The dusty webs of thought, which set a bound 

To stone, to clay, to color, even to rhyme. 

And yet are souls by art more deeply stirred 
Than by an idle tune, which lovers play 

On summer eves, or by a careless bird 

Dropping his silver notes from woodland spray? 

I know not ; but such music I have heard 
Till life and death and love did melt away. 



SAINTE-BEUVE 

To feel what other men feel ; to command, 

With insight keen, the subtle human soul ; 

To be one's self yet see what thoughts control 
The artist's brain, the soldier's gleaming brand ; 
To pray with saints, yet press the sinner's hand ; — 

This was thy hope, this was thy constant goal. 

One word will sum thy life up round and whole: 
"All longings fail save that to understand." 

Yet, after all, how much can knowledge give? 
What have we gained, when thought's pale corrosive 

Has soured the palate and inade dull the eye? 

These stores of learnine, when we've laid them 

by- 

Can neither help the throbbing pulse to live. 
Nor cheer the fainting heart, when it must die. 

34 



THE SOCIALISTIC-IDEALIST 

Long ages since the poets sang, in hope, 
Of dreams ideal and conditions new. 
"The world," they said, "must needs the good 
pursue 

B}' rough and crooked ways, long, long must cope 

With thieves who prey, and worthless drones who 
mope ; 
But clear, behind the black cloud, spreads the blue, 
And God will overcome, for he is true." 

So sang the poets long since, and still we grope. 

Ah, let us grope no longer! Poet nor God, 
Neither in earth beneath nor Heaven above. 
Can do for man what man must do himself. 
Forget this race insane for pride and pelf. 
Live by the golden rule, not by the rod. 
The world has striven enough ; now let it love. 



DEMOCRACY 

For ages in a sluggard doze he lay, 

While kings and priests careered upon his back. 

They stirred his dreams with steel and flame and 
rack ; 
But still he slept and snored the time away. 
At length he turned and felt the warmth of day. 

And reared, and plunged, and learned the cruel 
knack 

Of blood, till purple kings and prelates black 
Found he could smite and stab, as well as they. 



35 



Now he sprawls free, and shakes his mighty limbs, 
Till palaces and temples rock and strain ; 

Combs back the dirty, matted hair, which dims 
His blinking eyes, and chants, with might and 
main, 

In penny-sheets, self-laudatory hjanns, — 

Monster, with arms, legs, belly, and no brain. 



L'ENVOI 

Farewell, thou lovely harp of fourteen strings. 
Companion, whom my itlle hours employ. 
Interpreter of sorrow and of joy. 

Sweet utterer of unutterable things, 

Strong bird, who bear'st away on fleet, white wings 
The trivial fret whose waspish stings annoy. 
Nay, even those deeper sorrows that destroy 

The golden bloom of high imaginings. 

Farewell ! And let me whisper to thy chords 
The highest message that my heart affords. 

Sound thou it loud to earth and Heaven above: 
Over the stormy sea of human fear 
Two stars forever shine, serene and clear. 

The star of laughter and the star of love. 



36 



THE VILLA OF HADRIAN 



THE VILLA OF HADRIAN 

Beyond the Atlantic surges drear 
November winds blow shrill and clear, 
And those I love and who love me 
Are watching winter wearily. 
But here, beneath the sky of Rome, 
In Hadrian's forgotten home, 
The ardent touch of summer still 
Lies radiant over vale and hill, 
And still the sun in mid-day height 
Shines supereminently bright. 

Close at my side, and all around. 
Colossal fragments strew the ground, 
Column and moulding, base and frieze. 
Lost all their primitive degrees, 
In huge confusion huddled lie, 
And bare walls gape at the vast sky: 
Decay of grandeur, wreck immense. 
Imperial magnificence, 
Sunken, fallen, ruined, gone, 
Naught left behind but formless stone. 
Yet, with soft and gentle plan. 
Nature veils the grief of man : 
Over broken pillar weaves 
Ivy bright, with glittering leaves ; 
Spreads her flowers, far and wide. 
Desolation's touch to hide. 
Daisies tipped with crimson hue, 
Gentians delicately blue. 
Buds all yellow, pink, and white. 
Starring the green, like drops of light; 
Sends the quick, industrious bee, 
To shame, with his activity. 
Thoughts of death and dull decay ; 
Makes the timid lizard stray 
Quiet over sunny wall, 



39 



Quiver and vanish ; best of all, 

Bids the birds, in every bush. 

Break the golden, mid-day hush 

With flashing, trembling throbs of sound 

That stir response above, around. 

Then die away, and all is still. 

So, undisturbed, I dream at will 

Of him whose spirit framed this place, 

The architect of imperial race. 

Who planned this refuge for his age, 

After a toilsome pilgrimage : 

A strange caprice, a royal whim, 

To reproduce in image dim. 

Where senile thought in peace was furled. 

The varied v»-onders of the world. 

Athens here, the cynosure 
Of thought and wnt, in miniature, 
The splendors of her art unfolded. 
By consummate skill re-moulded ; 
Trod, beneath these wood-slopes green. 
In Aeschylean might, the scene. 
Tempe's mimic waters flowed 
By this felicitous abode. 
Arching hall and gloomy shrine 
Wakened memories divine. 
Decked with wonders of the East; 
While the slow and solemn priest 
Chanted on the sacred sod 
Every rite of every god. 
Nor were images of pleasure 
Wanting in an equal measure. 
Here the holy river ran, 
Nile, the oldest god of man. 
On whose quiet waters sail 
Barks, by many a gentle gale 
Borne voluptuous along, 



40 



Filled with love and filled with song. 
Age, whose joys are fled away, 
Bids revel and keep holiday 
Youth, whose bliss must fade so soon. 
Swifter than the changing moon, 
Swifter than the rose or cloud, 
So near the banquet to the shroud. 
Nor less do ancient writers tell 
That in these narrow limits Hell, 
With all its tortures, was conceived, 
A fable quick to be believed ; 
For man's inventive genius well 
Can figure all the pains of Hell: 
But not so readily 'tis given 
To feign a satisfying Heaven. 

Thus the imperial traveller, 
The memory-laden wanderer. 
Without fatigue, or toil, or pain, 
Could trace his journeys o'er again. 
Happy! As I know well, whose ease, 
Perilled in enormous seas. 
Has all too hopelessly been lost 
In slow sojourn, on foreign coast. 
Quick-witted Rosalind, for me, 
Spoke truth, in sprightly repartee: 
He who strays long in foreign lands 
His eyes are rich, but poor his hands. 

Yet, spite of all the varied stores 
Of beauty from a hundred shores. 
Though memory wooed him with her smiles, 
And love, from Asiatic isles, 
Laid all its graces at his feet ; 
I know that Hadrian's subtle, fleet, 
And eager mind must oft have turned 
From breath of parasites, whom he spurned, 
From trickling fount and golden dome, 
To thoughts of manlier, grander Rome. 

41 



At least, it must be so with me, 

When hung afar in mist I see 

That mighty fane that swells on high. 

Like thunder-cloud in evening sky. 

Far, far beyond that fane, I gaze 

Back to the might of other days, 

Back to the Caesars, back to Rome, 

Who bade all other nations come 

And bend the neck and bow the knee 

And own her awful sovereignty. 

I ponder on that regal state. 

On those, the greatest of the great. 

Of whom but one, nor best nor worst, 

^Vas Hadrian, neither blessed, nor cursed. 

What an enormous throne they filled, 

Whose smile made rich, whose anger killed, 

Whose jewelled sceptre, careless hurled, 

Shook the foundations of the world. 

And how in them, amazed, we scan 

The incapacity of man. 

For though some earned their high estate. 

And some were wise, some good, some great. 

The many were but ass, or ape. 

Deformed by power from human shape, 

Haters of men, deprived of good. 

Their mighty place not understood. 

Spurred on to wrath, to blood, to lust, 

A mockery of gilded dust. 

And under them the wise and free 

Lived one long life of agony; 

Till Rome, the mighty Rome supreme, 

Grown great beyond her Fathers' dream, 

W^hose grandeur, like a golden girth, 

Involved the nations of the earth. 

Tottered, and failed, and sank, and fell. 

As some vast ship, in vaster swell 

Of monstrous and engulfing seas, 

42 



Whose masts are cut to give her ease, 
Whose rudder gone, whose cables rent, 
Whose utmost energy is spent. 
Still toils and strains amid the surge; 
Now sinks, yet once more to emerge; 
Then, slow and sullen, rolls to sleep, 
Far down in the enormous deep : 
So Rome. 

The shade, in Tempe vale, 
Deeper grows, the olives pale 
Shiver in the autumn breeze, 
Which has driven home the bees. 
And no longer here is heard 
Sound of any singing bird. 
Home of empire, fare thee well ! 
Better tales than thou canst tell 
Come to me from far away. 
In the realms of fading day. 
Four bright eyes and four quick hands. 
Over in the sunset lands. 
Weave for me a garland sweet 
Of merry looks and gestures fleet. 
Forced from them to stray awhile, 
I can here my hours beguile ; 
But neither art, with all its grace, 
Nor sunny smile, nor fairy face, 
Nor old world imaginings. 
Dreams of consuls and of kings, 
Nor even the mighty past of Rome, 
Can give me what I have at home. 



43 



SONG OF THE SIRENS TO ULYSSES 

Weary wanderer, wave-worn Ulysses, 

Stay thy bark by this sunny isle. 
Let Siren murmurs and Siren kisses 

Soothe thy wayfaring soul awhile. 

Why should'st thou battle on, sad-eyed wanderer? 

Why should'st thou seek for thy barren Greece? 

Why face the storm, with head bared to the Thun- 



erer 



Weary Uh'sses, here rest in peace. 

Hera hates thee, Zeus longs to be rid of thee, 
Pallas Athena guides thee no more. 

She will be loving another instead of thee, 
Turn, O Ulysses, thy prow toward shore. 

Men have belied us, have slandered us, hated us. 
We have not loved them, have paid scorn with 
scorn. 

Thou, O Ulysses, unknoun, hast awaited us, 
Fate made us love thee the hour thou wert born. 

Come, O Ulysses! Sweet meadows attend thee. 
Soft dews, and softer sleep, love dreams for care. 

We will adore thee, preserve thee, defend thee. 
Rock thee and pillow thee with white arms fair. 

What is the world but a black sea of trouble ? 

Here is no sorrow, no fear, no annoy. 
Out on the dark deep thy cares will redouble. 

Here thou wilt faint with the taste of our joy. 

Weary wanderer, wave-worn Ulysses, 

Stay thy bark by this sunny isle. 
Let Siren murmurs and Siren kisses 

Soothe thy wayfaring soul awhile, 

44 



A VERSE OF ISAIAH 

"Take a harp, go about the city, thou harlot 
that hast been forgotten ; make sweet melody, sing 
many songs, that thou mayest be remembered." — 
Isaiah xxiii, i6. 

harp forgotten, ravish men once more! 
Lay the whole world's desire at my feet. 
Youth and love's delight are sweet, so sweet, 

And age is cold. My heart, my heart is sore. 
'Tis not so many years since I w'as j'oung ; 
Even yet my brow is younger than my heart; 
But all the sweets of life are fled away. 
So far away, I hardly know their names. 
Yet I was young, and fair — they said — and pure. 

1 knew not there was evil in the world. 
Set off in my own world of quiet joy. 

I lived a child's life, sucked the sweets of it. 
Filled myself with it to the very core. 

harp forgotten, ravish men once more! 
Then came the sweet of love, sweetest of sweets, 
A rose so red it filled the whole, wide earth. 
And stained the blue of Heaven. Oh, so sweet, 
So red ! I asked no more than just that love. 
One dear possession ever. Men forget. 

Men weary. We, who have the charm to win, 
Have not the skill to keep. That day! That day! 

1 was flung from him, bruised, and faint, and sore. 
O , harp forgotten, ravish men once more. 

I wandered then upon the world's wide sea. 
Men called me fair, and often touched my lips. 
And wooed me for a smile. And some I loved ; 
Not as I loved him first; but half in scorn, 
Half with a hungry longing to forget. 
To drown remembrance in the stinging wave 
Of human passion; not, Oh, not for gold! 

45 



I never bartered even the fruits of love, 
Not love's frail blossom for a kingdom's ore. 

harp forgotten, ravish men once more. 
But I was fain to still the endless fret, 

To dull cold fear and cheat the touch of time, 
To quench a woman's longing, and blot out 
Faint, far, sweet thoughts of home, and lovely 

peace. 
And all I was not and I might have been. 

1 drained the cup, I strained the aching nerve, 
I sought not love, but lovers. That is o'er. 
O harp forgotten, ravish men once more. 
Yes, that is o'er; and I must sit alone. 
And feel gray age along my temples creep. 
And cold airs cling about me, damp and dead ; 
Alone, amid the song of lovely winds. 
Amid the pleasant murmur of the waves, 
Beneath the quiet motion of the stars, 

Alone, and close before me swift decay, 
Forgetfulness, or ignominy, among men, 
Shame, and the unavoidable, horrible. 
Blank, desolate, sombre portal of the tomb. 
Woe, woe for all I loved and lost before! 
O harp forgotten, ravish men once more. 

Lay the whole world's desire at my feet. 

Love and love's keen delight are sweet, so sweet. 
And age is cold. My heart, my heart is sore. 



46 



LEOPARDI 

I feel the quiet breath of summer winds 

Kissing my forehead. Overhead the clouds 

Drift slowly in the infinite of blue. 

The vesper bell is ringing. Now the hind 

Wearily trudges homeward, to forget 

Labor and pain. The stars will soon be out, 

Soon glimmer in the quiet dome of night, 

Greeting thee, Italy. My Italy! 

So great, so mighty once, so wretched now. 

Can I forget the splendor of thy name. 

The matchless fortune of imperial Rome? 

Can I forget? Oh, bitter to remember! 

In the vast tide and flux of human things 

The blotting stain of memory alone 

Makes us ourselves, the infinite curse of nature, 

Who loves us not. A harsh and bitter power 

Fostered us in a universe of pain, 

A universe instinct with strife alone, 

A universe whose essence is but war. 

Whose mere existence is in mutual hate. 

Oh, mystery! Oh, mystery! Our selves 

Are but two jarring principles, the one 

Still striving to assert itself and live, 

To smite, and cleave, and crush, and overcome ; 

The other to forget itself, and be 

But one pulse in the immensity of life, 

To feel with all that feels, to be at one 

With what eternally is not itself. 

So torn, so worn, dismembered, shattered, null, 

We roll into the sea of time, and float, 

And suffer, and roll back into eternity. 

They say that I am weak, and that my soul 

Sees all things therefore darkly, I, they say. 

Show in a wretched body wretched mind. 

But even for that I dare rebel, and brand 

47 



Remorseless Nature with her wickedness. 
Why am I weak? Why do I drag along 
This wretched body through the wretched days, 
Indolent, impotent, well nigh mad with pain? 
Who made me so to suffer, what vile will. 
With infinite, cold cruelty condemned 
Its creatures to these ecstasies of grief? 
Vain question ! Vain as thought which beats its 

wings 
A little, with the passion of despair, 
Flutters and struggles, cannot hold its poise. 
And sinks into the silent deep of night. 
Thought! Thought! In thought lies our primeval 

curse ; 
For beasts can suffer and perchance forget, 
Can snatch an hour, when the pulse of pain 
Is dulled ; but unto man fierce memory brings 
Ever the weary strain of jarring nerves, 
Ever brings shame and impotent regret. 
Ever brings woe. 

O quiet autumn winds. 
Breathe on me still and seal my eyes in sleep, 
Sleep that supplies a momentary balm. 
Sleep, the beloved forerunner of death. 
And death? If death were death, I would invoke 
Him rather to shut up my woe and me 
In the blank prison of forgetfulness. 



48 



SONNETS 



FATE 

That dark, enormous power, which made its lair 
Of old in the bleak caverns of dim night, 
Chilling the fragile flowers of earth's delight, 

Ruling the universe to all men's care ; 

That power, whose chain was linked to Jove's own 
chair, 
From whence unrolling, with resistless might, 
It held the world entangled, in despite 

Of fear, and grief, and agony, and prayer, — 

That power is gone forever. In its stead 

Our modern men have framed a huge machine. 
Necessity by name, which in its play, 

Aimless and pauseless, thoughtless, hopeless, dead. 
Grasps all that is, or will be, or has been, 
Rends all, grinds all, and passes on its way. 

To and 

Sweet girls, I pray you, come and let's be merry. 
Let care be but a dull, forgotten fellow. 
Whose pale seductions cannot make us yellow, 
Nor teach us how, like ghosts in cemetery, 
To sit and watch him his thin phantoms bury. 
Come, let us bite sweet apples that are mellow, 
And troll a clearer catch than old Sordello, 
A light, bright piping, like a child of fairy, 
Who whistles all day in a forest green. 
Good faith, there is a deal of revelry 

In this old world, could we but pluck it out. 
Mad laughter's hid, where only woe is seen ; 
Our hearts are grayer than our foreheads be; 
And we should sing, not sit, and grieve, and 
doubt. 



51 



ON READING MASSON'S MILTON 

Monarch of music stormy or serene, 

Under whose hand the solemn periods flow, 
With motion as enormous and as slow, 
As that of tides, heaving the ocean green, 
Which flood the verge, with energy unseen. 
And jar the world in tossing to and fro, 
Thy pure austerity doth make us know 
The grandeur of convictions that have been 
And are no more. To our frivolity 

Thou art repulsive almost, strange at least, 
Like some huge mammoth, digged from icy 
grave 
In far Siberia by the Northern sea. 

Or like thine own Leviathan, shadowy beast, 
Wallowing at length upon the oozy wave. 



When in the trackless caverns of the mind 
I plunge and wander all a winter's day, 
In those vast shadowy regions, where I stray, 
Vague terrors haunt me. Now I turn and find 
Some grim thought that comes creeping up behind 
Like a vain phantom. Now I fall a prey 
To memories that beckon me away. 
With chilly murmur, like an autumn wind. 
Now some huge chasm opens at my feet. 
Making me start and tremble on its verge, — 
And rarely, if I linger long, I reach 
Some still nook, where the summer air breathes 
sweet. 
Where lovely sounds from depths profound 
emerge. 
Like gentle waves upon a pebbled beach. 



52 



TO H. F. B. 

Dear Heart, the ample orb of human fate 
Sweeps in a wider circle than we know. 
On one small arc in this dim world w^e go, 
And see not what new fortune may await 
Our little, troubled, frail, uncertain state, 
When it has met its mortal overthrow 
And plunged into tlie grave. What wmds may 
blow, ,11 

What storms may shatter us, what vexed debate 
Jar in that hidden future, who can tell? 

And that one thing by which our present life 
Is not past bearing, that sweet love we 
cherish. 
That quiet island in a sea of strife, ^ 
That little Heaven in the world's wide Hell— - 
Oh, if we knew that that could never perish ! 



53 



SONGS AND LYRICS 



HUMAN LIFE 

A butterfly I deem the soul of man 
Which flits a moment between earth and sky 
And trembles through the measure of a span, 
A butterfly. 

From flower to flower it idly passes by, _ 
And sucks such honeyed sweetness,^ as it can. 
Swinging with indolent poise, luxuriously. 

On purple blooms, which wayward breezes fan. 
It thinks its summer beauty shall not die. 
Tell me, then, pray, is not the soul of man 
A butterfly? 

Child of light with sunny hair. 
Who can measure the delight 
Thou dost scatter everywhere, 
Child of light? 

Older hearts, though spotless white. 
Feel a touch of grief or care, 
Feel a shadow of death's night. 

May the breath of Heavenly air 
Ever fan thy forehead bright. 
That I make my only prayer, 
Child of light. 



57 



FAIR WEATHER 

The moon is out and leads her starry train 

Across the heavens again. 
The white clouds, in a fleecy pack, 

Are driven back. 
Like routed hosts, across a battle plain. 

Whom foeman press. 

Between them, in the cavernous blue, 

I see the stars shine through. 
Much like to snowy lilies set 

In beds of violet. 
Or like the globed drops of summer dew 

Fallen on thy dress. 



DIRGE 

She sleeps beneath the clinging sod. 

May rest her portion be, 
Gone back into the heart of God 

From whence she came to me. 

Gone back into the heart of God, 
Too pure, too fair for me, 

She sleeps beneath the clinging sod. 
Ah, might I with her be! 



58 



MARE MAGNUM 

O Hope, which art but pain, 

Yet in the root, unbudded. O Desire, 

Which fillest nerve and brain 

With such unquenchable, consuming fire! 

O Wisdom, untransmutable 

Into accordant act and so most vain ! 

Thought ! O Passion ! O inscrutable 
Gleams of delight, which flash out and retire, 
Like moonbeams on a softly shuddering sea! 

1 ask you what you are 

And whence. And yet I ask you not in fear. 

But wondering; for afar. 

The hollow whisper of the tide I hear. 

Which brought me to this shore; 

And well I know, that when its wave once more 

Has borne me hence, your jar, 

And tedious strife you wage forever here. 

Shall have no longer power over me. 



59 



NIGHTPIECE 

No stir on the tide but one long faint wave 

Over the black rocks curled, 
Like memor)' clinging about hope's grave, 

Drowned in a pitiless world. 

No sound but the cricket's changeless croon, 
No sight on the wave or the lea, 

But one white star on the breast of the moon. 
And one white sail on the sea. 



NIGHTPIECE 

I am alone here by the sea. 

No human folly mars 
My dream. The ocean's harmony 
Is all I hear, and all I see 

One wild rose and the stars. 

The moon is setting through cloud bars. 

I have no thought but thee, 
Here, far remote from mortal jars. 
With one shut wild rose and the stars 

And the far-sounding sea. 



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TTOTvca, noTvta t-u? 

Euripides 

Holy is night! 

Not her own are the crimes she veils, 

Not her own are the passions of men, 

Nor their evil thoughts, 

Nor their lusts, 

Nor their sin. 

Hol\' is night! 

Calm is she and austere. 

Before the stars, her children, she was; 

Before the gods, her children, she was; 

And shall be after them. 

Holy is night! 

And, as she looks on me gazing, 

Her calm immensity out of my heart 

Drives all weariness, all petty thoughts, 

And leaves it lost 

Deep in its own immensity of love. 



6i 



SONG 

Bid the blossom on the bough 
Droop and fade and die in vain. 

Bid the wreath of April's snow 
Melt, untouched by earthly stain. 

Bid the virgin heart before it wake, 

Break, 
Ah, bid it break. 

Soiled too soon in mud and mire, 
Withered, even before belief. 

Fades illusion, fades desire, 
Fades the last consoler, grief. 

Autumn waits to crush the dreams of June 

soon, 
Alas, too soon. 



They said: "We have loved one another 
In days that have gone before." 

They said : "We have loved one another. 
We love one another no more. 

In those days youth was behind us 

And love and delight before. 
Oh, who had the power to blind us 

And blindeth us not any more? 

The world grows darker and colder. 

Ay, colder than ever before. 
Our hearts grow older and older: 

They are not moved any more." 



CLOWN'S SONGS 

Oh, a little, little cot 

In a valley green. 
Where the sun shines hot, 

And you lie between 
Sweet vines breathing an autumn flavor! 
So to be kissed and caressed for ever! 

Derry, derry dow^n. 



Heigh-ho ! 
For moons must wax and moons must wane. 
And pleasure too often is bought with pain. 
And care rides early in rags and tatters. 
And what the world says of us little matters, 
So long as we lie in a corner warm 
And wrap us close from the pitiless storm. 

Heigh-ho! 



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Oh! 

To be singing all the day, 
To be loving all the night! 

How can creatures made of clay 
Taste a more supreme delight? 

Naught of wit my folly knows. 

Dreams of mine no deeper are 
Than the budding of a rose, 

Or the falling of a star. 



A touch of dust and a touch of clay, 
A touch of dark and a touch of day, 
A touch of work and a touch of play, 
Vast hopes in a little span ; 

A bit of sound and a bit of sight, 
The fitful gleam of a vanishing light, 
A spark gone out in enormous night. 
Such is the life of man. 



64 



PROLOGUE AND LYRICS FROM 
A MAD WORLD 



PROLOGUE 

Kind friends, our author hopes that it may seem 

As if you wandered in some old sweet dream; 

While we with antique melody rehearse 

The golden treasures of forgotten verse. 

Forget, forget the troubles of today! 

Fling sordid, hungry, gnawing care away! 

Believe yourselves, with gentle magic, whirled 

Back to the laughter of an earlier world. 

Believe that you are tasting the delights 

Of country air and country sounds and sights. 

Believe that nothing on the dusty earth 

Is better than an evening's easy mirth. 

Believe that all these fleeting shadows be 

More lovely far than dull reality. 

Believe — But stop! Our friend begins to fear 

His modesty is not conspicuous here. 

What if, instead of dreams, he finds he's drawn 

One dire, general, huge, enormous j^awn, 

While all his patient hearers go away 

And swear they've never seen so dull a play? 

Good faith, he doubts he's laid his plot too deep: 

He bids you dream, but would not have you sleep. 



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PRUDENCE' SONGS 

Lady rose and lady lily, 

Dewdrops fall, like kisses, on you. 
Violet and daffodilly, 

Sunlight smiles, like love, upon you. 
Dewdrops and sun are all you flowers crave: 
Kisses and love for maids; and then a grave. 

Love doth wither like a flower ; 

Kisses have uncertain savor; 
Sweet is madness for an hour; 

But will sweetness bide for ever? 
Madness or sweetness, which shall bear the bell? 
Sweetness or madness, flowers, I cannot tell. 



Love, O Love, where thou art playing, 

Hope and joy delight to linger. 
Grief would never think of straying, 

Where thou once hast touched thy finger. 

Come, Love, Oh, quickly come! 

Thou dost banish dreams unsightly. 
Life's harsh ways are all made even, 

Where thy feet have wandered lightly, 
Making earth a kind of Heaven. 
Come, Love, Oh, quickly come! 



SERENADE 

Tarry, tarry yet awhile, 

Love, the fading and the frail 
Oh, that thou shouldst only smile 

Once, and leave the world so pale. 
When thy f^rst delight is o'er, 
Well we know thou comest never more. 

Know thou comest never more. 

Then abide a little while. 
Life, too desolate before. 

Grows so lovely with thy smile. 
Thou canst hallow every spot 
Of this drear earth. O Love, then, leave us not. 



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CLOWN'S SONGS 

From a lip to steal a kiss 
My supremest wisdom is. 
On a sunny bank doth lie 
My profound'st philosoph3^ 
I could never taste nor savor 
Knowledge with eternal labor. 
I must wander wild and far, 
Like a light and laughing star. 



Tinkle, tinkle go my bells, 
Driving ugly care away, 
Luring still delight to stay, 

While my heart with laughter swells. 

Folly hath her own sweet spells, 
Woven out of mirth and sleep. 
Else perchance even fools would weep. 

Tinkle, tinkle go my bells. 



70 



Who can sa)' that folly dwells 
Only under cap and bells? 
She does haunt a graver cover, 
Clerk and soldier, saint and lover. 
Clatter bauble, jingle bell. 
Sings pope or parson half so well ? 



Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet 

Is love's caress on a midsummer day 

When corn is swinging, 

And mad birds singing. 
And the wild world laughs at play. 
Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet! 



"Here I lie on the cold earth. 

Thou art laughing there above. 
Prithee, let me in for mirth. 

If thou wilt not. Sweet, for love. 
But a kiss, but a kiss, but a kiss, and away! 
In the high heaven dawns the bright day." 

"Mount up, mount up, my honey-sweet love. 

'Twere pity thou should'st mourn. 
While I am laughing here above. 

Thou shalt not lie forlorn. 
But a kiss, but a kiss, hut a kiss, and away! 
In the high heaven dawns the bright day." 



71 



TRANSLATIONS 



THE EVENING AFTER A FESTIVAL. 

(From Leopardi.) 

Serene, and clear, and windless is the night. 

Quietly floats the moon above the roofs 

And peaceful gardens, showing pale, far ofiE, 

The mountains wrapped in calmness. O my Lady, 

Now ways are silent and the nightly lamp 

Shines with a dim, frail gleam through casements 

barred. 
Thou sleepest, thee an easy sleep has charmed 
In thy still chambers ; nor does any care 
Sting thee: thou dost not think, thou canst not 

know 
How great a wound thou hast opened in my heart. 
Thou sleepest: I, here watching, greet in pain 
The heavens which smile, with aspect so benign. 
And old, omnipotent nature, who created 
Me to be wretched. "Even hope," she says, 
"Even hope I have denied thee, and thine eyes 
Shall know no other gleam than that of tears." 
This day has been a feast day : thou dost rest 
Now from thy merriment; perchance in dreams 
Thou see'st all who have loved thee, all whom thou 
Might'st learn to love: not I, alas, not I 
Am found among that number. I, meanwhile, 
Ask how long life is left me, cast me down 
On the firm earth and rave. Oh, horrible 
Such days in youth's green season! 

Hark! I hear, 
Not too remote, the solitary song 
Of some belated peasant, who returns 
After his labor to his lowly home. 
And hearing him my heart is chilled with grief, 
To think upon the fleeting of the world, 
That leaves no trace behind. See, now is fled 



75 



The festival ; and on its heels comes swift 
The common day; and so time sweeps along 
Each accident of life. Where is the fame 
Of those old nations, where the great renown 
Of our forefathers, and the vast domain 
Of mighty Rome, her arms, and all the wrath 
She thundered to the limits of the world? 
Engulfed in night and silence, all that stir 
Forgotten, no man knows them any more. 
In my first childish years, when some bright day, 
Such as young hope anticipates, had come, 
And passed, and gone, I, grieving, on my couch 
Lay, watched ; and, in the stillness of the night, 
A song, far-heard in dark and quiet ways. 
Which swelled upon the stillness and died off, 
Even then, as now, passionately wrung my heart. 



7t 



THE INFINITE 

(From Leopard!.) 
This quiet slope was always dear to me, 
And this enclosure, which shuts off my gaze 
From half the circle of the far horizon. 
And sitting here, in thought I have devised 
Interminable vastness out beyond, 
And superhuman silence, and some rest 
Profoundest, gazing, where a little while 
The heart frets not itself. And, as I hear 
The night wind howling idly through the woods, 
I can compare its turbulence with that 
Infinity of silence, and remember 
The eternal, and the years past, and those present 
And living, and their murmur. So, in that 
Immensity my thoughts have lost themselves; 
Nor am I loath to wreck in such a sea. 



77 



